Oregon Historic Sites Database

Search Menu

Site Information small logo

Oregon Historic Sites Database

address:3811 SW Carman Dr historic name:Waters and Lucretia Carman House
Lake Oswego, Clackamas County (97034) current/other names:Carman Farm, Waters Carman House; Wilmot Carmen, Waters, Farm
assoc addresses:
block/lot/tax lot: / 1200
location descr: twnshp/rng/sect/qtr sect:2S 1E 5
resource type:Building height (stories):1.5 total elig resources:1 total inelig resources:1
elig evaluation: eligible/contributing NR Status:
prim constr date:1857 second date:c.1980 date indiv listed:
primary orig use: Farmstead orig use comments:
second orig use: Single Dwelling
primary style: Vernacular prim style comments:
secondary style: Federal sec style comments:
primary siding: Horizontal Board siding comments:lapped board siding
secondary siding: Wood:Other/Undefined
plan type: Side Passage/Entry architect:
builder:Attributed Bryant, C W
comments/notes:
Currently For Sale (1/10/13), New Garage, Small Lot surrounded by New Development (No Longer a Farm Site)Current request to remove from local landmarks list for purposes of demolition (8/7/13). Building is still pending demolition. A local group is trying to have the home preserved. (8/14).
Survey/Grouping Included In: Type of Grouping Date Listed Date Compiled
   Settlement-era Dwellings, Barns & Farm Groups the the Willamette Valley, Oregon Survey & Inventory Project 2013
NR date listed: N/A
ILS survey date: 08/14/2014
RLS survey date: 01/10/2013
106 Project(s): None
Special Assess Project(s): None
Federal Tax Project(s): None
(Includes expanded description of the building/property, setting, significant landscape features, outbuildings and alterations)
The one-and-a-half-story house has a moderately pitched roof with boxed eaves and a wide verge board. The roof is clad in composition shingles, and a chimney projects from the roof’s east slope. The home has an L-shaped plan with two stacked gables on the north-south section of the home, and a cross gable is located on the north side of the west façade. A full-width porch with exposed rafters is along the east façade. The wide porch roof is supported by square posts. The building is clad in horizontal board siding, and it sits on an un-coursed rock foundation. The house exhibits all of the character-defining features of a Vernacular-style home from the Territorial period, including the simple form, horizontal lap siding, wide verge boards, multilight windows, full-width front porch, and general lack of ornamentation. The Waters and Lucretia Carman House is Vernacular in style, but a ca. 1900 photo of the house shows Gothic Revival details in its original porch, which has since been replaced with a simpler, Classical Revival–style porch with Tuscan columns. It is not known when this alteration was made. As noted during the 1989 cultural resource inventory, it is believed that a small shed was incorporated into the house, a kitchen was added, the front door was replaced, and a polygonal bay window was added to the west elevation (Koler and Morrison 1989). It also appears that the large multilight window to the north of the front entrance was added at some point, but dates for these additions are not currently known. Many may have occurred during the historic period. Based on a visual inspection from the public right-of-way, it appears the Waters and Lucretia Carman House has undergone few alterations since the 1989 survey. There are no permits on file suggesting any major renovations, and the home’s materials appear to be unchanged. A non-contributing 1950s garage is located to the north of the house.
(Chronological, descriptive history of the property from its construction through at least the historic period - preferably to the present)
The Waters and Lucretia Carman House, located at 3811 Carman Drive in Lake Oswego, is historically significant for its status as one of the few extant Territorial-era houses in Oregon. It is believed to have been constructed ca. 1855. The home is also significant for its association with Waters Carman, who was among the first to settle in the Oswego area and who had a lasting impact on the pioneer community. The dwelling was built between 1855 and 1858 on a parcel of land that was patented by Waters Carman under the authority of the Oregon Donation Land Law in 1866 (Bureau of Land Management [BLM] 2014: Accession Number OROCAA 040846). A neighbor, Charles W. Bryant, was reportedly hired to aid in the construction of the home (Portland Tribune 2010). An 1851 map from the General Land Office (GLO) indicates that there was a structure present within a plowed field on the Carman parcel at the time (GLO 1851). It is believed that a small shed housed the family until the main house was constructed in 1855. The shed was then incorporated into the house as a remodeled back room. It was said that the non-coursed rock walls lined the “hand dug basement” (Kolar and Morrison 1989). Carman’s original parcel was 326 acres, although the property now consists of a present-day tax lot of 1.25 acres (BLM 2014: Accession Number OROCAA 040846). Waters Carman was born on September 20, 1811, in Luzerne, Pennsylvania, and died on September 29, 1878, in Clackamas County, Oregon (Early Oregonians Database Index 2014). An article published in the Portland Tribute and written by noted historian Stephen Dow Beckham helps elucidate the history of Waters Carman: In 1832, [Waters] joined the Illinois Mounted Volunteers as a private in Captain Moffett’s Company to fight the Sac and Fox Indian tribes; Abraham Lincoln was among the soldiers engaged in this conflict. (Portland Tribune 2010) Carman married twice while in Illinois and once in Oregon. He married his second wife, Lavina Carman (nee Buckman), in 1843. She died in 1846, a few years before his arrival in Oregon, but their daughter, Lavina Rachel, and a son (from his first marriage), Joel Carman, eventually joined Carman at the home near “Sucker Creek,” which is known today as Oswego Creek (Portland Tribune 2010). Some reports suggested that these two marriages produced four children, two of whom later joined Waters Carman in Oregon. The number of children Waters had from these marriages has not been verified but was mentioned in an article in The Sunday Oregonian in 1970 (The Sunday Oregonian 1970). Waters joined the California gold rush, quickly relocating to Oregon when his dreams of fortune were not realized. He was first officially enumerated in Oregon in the 1850 census. At the time, he resided in a boarding house with the Albert Durham family and he was enumerated as a laborer (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1850). It has been reported that for a time during this period Carman resided in Durham’s sawmill at the mouth of Sucker Creek (Portland Tribune 2010). Waters Carman’s third wife, Lucretia Allyn Carman (nee Gurney), was the recent widow of Gustav Gurney, who drowned in the Columbia River shortly after the young couple’s arrival in the territory. Waters and Lucretia Waters were reportedly the first couple to be wed in Oswego in 1853 (The Sunday Oregonian 1970). The couple resided in a log cabin on the property until the Carman House was completed. A structure, likely the log cabin, is visible on an 1851 GLO map of the area (GLO 1851). The 1860 census showed Waters and Lucretia Carman living at the home with three of their children, George (born in 1854), Mary Lucretia (born 1856), and Henrietta J. (born 1859) (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1860). Waters and Lucretia reportedly had two more children, Helen Adelia (born 1860) and a son whose name is unknown (born in 1863) (Portland Tribune 2010). The 1870 U.S. census listed three of Waters and Lucretia’s children living at the house—Helen Adelia, Henrietta, and Mary—along with Lavina and Joel Carman from Waters’ previous marriages. There is no mention in the 1870 U.S. census of the Carmans’s son who was reportedly born in 1863 (Portland Tribune 2010; U.S. Bureau of the Census 1870).
Title Records Census Records Property Tax Records Local Histories
Sanborn Maps Biographical Sources SHPO Files Interviews
Obituaries Newspapers State Archives Historic Photographs
City Directories Building Permits State Library
Local Library:Lake Oswego University Library:
Historical Society: Other Respository:
Bibliography: